‘Baba,’ he asked the boys, ‘where are you all going, and for what purpose?’
‘To perform a sraddha,’ Bichkun declared. ‘A funeral ceremony.’
‘Whose sraddha is it?’ the old man enquired.
‘Kalo-Kumro-Tatka-Lanka’s’ was the reply.
The boys chorused in a loud, sing-song chant:
‘Kalo-Kumro-Tatka-Lanka, Black-Pumpkin-Green-Chilli, We’ll teach you a lesson, and make you look silly!
The train halted at Asansol. The old man got off to have a bath. As soon as he returned to the carriage afterwards, Bichkun warned him: ‘Don’t remain in this carriage, sir!’
‘Why, may I ask?’
‘It’s infested with rats.’
‘Rats! How’s that possible?’
‘Just look at the mess they made when they got into those handis of yours.’
The gentleman found that the handi full of sugary kodmas was now completely empty, and the one containing khoichur had not a grain left in it.
‘And they even ran off with whatever was inside your rag bundle,’ Bichkun added.
That bundle had contained four or five ripe mangoes from his garden.
‘The rats are famished, I see,’ remarked the gentleman with a faint smile.
‘No, no, it’s their nature to devour things even if they’re not hungry,’ replied Bichkun.
The boys laughed uproariously. ‘Yes, moshai,’ they guffawed, ‘if there was more, they’d have eaten it up as well.’
‘I made a mistake,’ the gentleman observed. ‘Had I known there would be so many rats travelling together in the train, I would have carried some more stuff.’
The boys were disheartened to find that the old man did not lose his temper in spite of so much teasing. If he had been provoked, it would have been fun.
The train stopped at Burdwan. It would halt there for about an hour, to switch tracks.
‘Baba,’ said the gentleman, ‘I won’t trouble you any more. There will be room for me in another compartment.’
‘No, no, that won’t do, you must travel in the same coach with us. If there’s anything left inside your bundles, we will guard it together, all of us. Nothing will be lost.’
‘All right,’ the gentleman assented. ‘Get into the carriage, all of you. I’ll join you in a little while.’
So the boys got into the carriage. A little later, the sweet-seller’s cart came and halted before their compartment, accompanied by the gentleman.
Handing a paper bag to each of the boys, he said: ‘Now there will be no shortage of food at the rats’ feast.’
‘Hurrah!’ shouted the boys, jumping up in glee. The mango-seller also arrived there, with his basket of mangoes. There was no dearth of mangoes either, at their feast.
‘Tell us,’ the boys asked the gentleman, ‘where are you going? What will you do there?’
‘I am going in search of work,’ he replied. ‘I’ll get off wherever I find work.’
They clapped their hands, all of them, and said: ‘Come to our school then.’
‘Why would your authorities want to keep me?’
‘They must. We won’t let Kalo-Kumro-Tatka-Lanka set foot in our neighbourhood.’
‘You have put me in a difficult position, I must say! What if the secretary doesn’t approve of me?’
‘He must approve—or else we shall all leave the school.’
‘All right, then take me with you.’
The train arrived at their station. The secretary was present there in person. Seeing the old man, he cried:
‘Welcome, welcome, Tarkalankarmoshai! Your house is ready and waiting.’ With these words, he bowed at the old man’s feet to offer his respects.
Translator’s Note
‘Something of the child must live within the adult man or his hand will not be able to pen words for children,’ the noted Bengali author Lila Majumdar once said. Rabindranath Tagore’s writings for children express just the same kind of empathy for his young readers. Throughout his long writing career, Tagore never gave up writing for children, and his inner youthful spirit never deserted him. These writings span a spectrum of genres, from fiction and poetry to drama, satire, essays, letters and autobiography.
Tagore does not take his young readers lightly. To be full of wonder and curiosity, with a vivid fancy, a free-ranging intellect and a bold and questioning spirit—that, for him, is the essence of childhood. Young people, he realizes, are neither foolish nor drawn only to happy things. The child’s inner world is not only full of joy and innocence, but also haunted by fear, destruction, violence, rage and jealousy. Tagore’s writings for children are not confined to a naive fairy-tale world; they also take life’s darker side on board. Sometimes, the line dividing children’s literature from adult literature is thin, even non-existent.
Tagore draws upon diverse sources: oral and folk traditions, Indian classical literature, Western texts, and non-literary forms derived from art and music. The themes are manifold: fantasy, fairy tale, nature, rural life, history, social and political satire, philosophical issues such as time, memory, life and death, environment, education and man’s relation with the universe. Some pieces work as fables with morals, while others express profound philosophical ideas in disarmingly simple language. But he also has a gift for the absurd and the whimsical that makes poems like ‘The Invention of Shoes’ immortal.
Tagore does not assume that children can’t discriminate between truth and falsehood, good and bad, justice and injustice. Many of his writings for the young have a strong ethical core. Some works, such as ‘Bolai’, highlight the beauty of nature and also its fragility and need for care and protection. In other, more sombre pieces, he dwells upon social evils such as the gap between the rich and the poor (as in ‘Two Bighas of Land’) or the exploitation of workers by the owners of industry (‘Madho’). In heroic poems such as ‘The Supreme Gift’, he foregrounds the legendary courage of our forebears.
The process of learning interests him too. Tagore is against hollow book-learning; he remembers having chafed at the discipline of formal education when he was a child. ‘The Parrot’s Story’ satirises the stifling of the child’s imagination by enforced textbook-oriented learning. In contrast, ‘A Feast for Rats’ presents the ideal schoolmaster: gentle, forbearing, and attuned to the playful spirit of his pupils. In Shantiniketan, Tagore experimented with an alternative approach to education, based on greater contact with nature and the values of creativity and cooperative living. Closeness to nature, Tagore feels, can offer release from isolation and self-centredness, to make one aware of one’s connections with an external harmony. In ‘Society and State’ (Towards Universal Man) he says: ‘blue sky and air, trees and flowers, are indispensable for the proper growth of the body and mind’ (71). Though he drew upon indigenous traditions, his thoughts on education were radical in many respects. In the school at Shantiniketan, girl students participated with the boys in lessons, sports and prayer services. Tagore also designed some brilliantly innovative textbooks for children. His approach anticipates modern theories of education premised on the idea that learning should be fun. The dividing line between study and play is thin, sometimes non-existent.
Not all the children in Tagore’s works are happy. Many are lonely, sad and full of yearning. Some are misfits in the worlds they inhabit; others, victims of unjust social and personal circumstances. A few, like Amal in ‘The Post Office’, possess a gravity and inner wisdom far beyond their age. Some, like Bolai or Sudha, are more at home in the world of nature than in their family circles. The clue to this lies perhaps in Tagore’s own childhood, recalled vividly in Jibansmriti and Chhelebela. For he was a lonely child, lost in the world of his own imagination, longing for love, haunted by irrational fears, and unable to conform to the traditional system of education.
Tagore loved experimenting with new rhythms and metres. He also introduced Chalti Bhasha or colloquial Bengali, a medium that young readers found more accessible than Sadh
u Bhasha, the formal Bengali prevalent in his time. In later life, Tagore often illustrated his own work with doodles that turned written script into sketches. He also experimented with painting. Not all the images are happy ones: many reveal a dark, frightening dimension to his imagination.
In Tagore’s works, we find a synthesis of elements from different art forms: orature, writing, music, dance, painting and drama. Many of his writings have a strong performative aspect. ‘The Post Office’ was staged in diverse languages in different parts of the world during his lifetime. The short, satirical farces, collected in Hasyakoutuk and Byangakoutuk (1907) are performed by children even now. ‘Tasher Desh’ (The Land of Cards) is a popular dance drama. ‘Lakshmir Pariksha’, originally designed for the female students of Tagore’s school, has an all-female cast.
Many of the issues Tagore raised so many years ago continue to haunt us today in different guises: the need to preserve nature and the environment, or to nurture basic human values in the face of a growing consumerism, or to develop a more tolerant and less hierarchical society. Tagore’s writings reflect the world that he knew, far removed from ours in time and ambience. But his work resists dating, because it deals with basic human emotions, instincts, ideals and urges.
In this collection, the aim is to offer a glimpse of Tagore’s range and versatility as a children’s writer. Translating the pieces in this volume has been a fascinating yet difficult enterprise, for it is hard to retain the simplicity and apparent artlessness of the originals. It is difficult, also, to replicate Tagore’s experiments with verse and metre, and his delight in wordplay. Many Bengali words have been retained here, to give these writings some of their authentic cultural flavour, with a glossary for explanations.
I feel honoured that Mahasweta Devi has consented to introduce the book. I am also grateful to Sudeshna Shome Ghosh and Sohini Mitra for their editorial inputs, and to Diptakirti Chaudhury for his work on the notes and trivia. If this collection kindles an interest in Tagore among today’s young readers, our collective effort will be worthwhile.
2009
Radha Chakravarty
Radha Chakravarty teaches literature at Gargi College, University of Delhi. Her translations include Crossings: Stories from Bangladesh and India, Chokher Bali, Farewell Song: Shesher Kabita, In the Name of the Mother: Four Stories, Boyhood Days, Gora and Vermilion Clouds: Stories by Bengali Women. She is the author of Feminism and Contemporary Women Writers: Rethinking Subjectivity. She has also edited Bodymaps: Stories by South Asian Women Writers and co-edited Writing Freedom: South Asian Voices and Writing Feminism: South Asian Voices. She is currently co-editing The New Tagore Reader for Visva Bharati and Harvard University. She was nominated for the Crossword Translation Award 2004.
The Land of Cards
Stories, Poems and Plays for Children
With Puffin Classics, the story isn’t over
when you reach the final page.
Want to discover more about the
author and his world?
Read on . . .
Contents
AUTHOR FILE
THE INDIA PAGES
THINGS TO THINK ABOUT
GLOSSARY
Author File
NAME: Rabindranath Tagore
BORN: 7 May 1861 in an unorthodox Pirali Brahmin family of Kolkata
FATHER: Debendranath Tagore, a religious reformer
MOTHER: Sarada Devi
FAMILY: He was the youngest of thirteen surviving children of his parents
QUALIFICATION: He never adapted to formal schooling, preferring to spend time in natural surroundings rather than in classrooms. However, he read extensively about science, astronomy, history, languages and literature. He was later sent to England for further studies and enrolled in University College of London, but did not complete his degree.
MARRIED TO: Mrinalini Devi
LITERARY OUTPUT: Rabindranath Tagore has a phenomenal body of work—across poetry, songs, plays, dance dramas, novels, short stories, essays, travelogues and autobiographies in various forms. He experimented with various styles of writing—the classical style of epics and holy books, the modern style of blank verse, an unassuming style from everyday usage and so on.
He has written quite extensively for children as well. Many of his poems have been written from a child’s point of view. In his later years, Tagore started painting and drawing as well—which were considered to be pieces of great value.
AWARDS: Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913
DEATH: 7 August 1941
What was Tagore’s contribution to the field of education?
Tagore was a great educationist. In his family estate called Shantiniketan (near Bolpur in West Bengal), he founded the Viswa Bharati University based on a unique teaching system, remembering his own traumatic experiences from school days.
Viswa Bharati encouraged individualized guidance (based on the gurukul system), conducted classes in open-air surroundings, let students choose their courses and pace of learning, and discouraged rote learning. The university also advocated the aesthetic development of the senses. Hence music, arts, dance and drama were given the same weightage as studies. Tagore himself taught there and wrote textbooks for the school. Even today it is a great seat of learning and culture.
What was Tagore’s political ideology like?
It is said that Tagore’s political views were rather complex. Nonetheless he was a staunch nationalist. During his lifetime he wrote several patriotic songs, poems and short stories. One of his very famous poems from the award-winning collection of poems Gitanjali throws much light on Tagore’s deep yearning for the freedom and emancipation of his country:
Where the mind is without fear
and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been
broken up into fragments
by narrow domestic walls . . .
Where the clear stream of reason
has not lost its way into the
dreary desert sand of dead habit . . .
Into that heaven of freedom,
my Father, let my country awake.
Instead of being jingoistic, Tagore explored the weaknesses of the Indian nationalist movement and its leaders as well.
He was knighted by the Crown in 1915, but renounced it in 1919 in protest against the Jallianwala Bagh massacre.
What is the impact of Tagore’s works on society?
Rabindranath Tagore won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913, but even that glory does not capture his true stature. In Bengal, he is considered to be a demi-god as his works are part of the daily life in the form of quotations, textbooks, subjects of higher studies, research institutes and as material for countless adaptations. His contribution to Bengali literature is unparalleled. It is said that the handwriting of Bengali people changed substantially in the post-Tagore era in line with his style!
Rabindra Sangeet (literally, Tagore’s Music) is a large body of music, which has remained popular over the years and is now getting adapted in various forms and by diverse kinds of singers.
During his life, Tagore met and collaborated with several giants of the modern world, like Albert Einstein, George Bernard Shaw, William Butler Yeats and H.G. Wells. Each one of them was greatly impressed by him. He was also the one who coined the term ‘Mahatma’ for Gandhi.
Were Tagore’s works ever adapted into films?
Tagore’s works are probably the most popular sources of films: several of his novels have been adapted for the screen. Countless songs by him have also been included in the soundtrack of films in different languages.
Kabuliwala has been made in Bengali and Hindi—starring Chhabi Biswas and Balraj Sahni, respectively, in the title roles of the two versions.
Do Bigha Zameen, a Hindi film made in 1953, takes its name from a poem in this collection, but the only similarity between the two is a zamindar’s desire to take over a poor peasant’s
land.
Satyajit Ray made several films based on Tagore’s novels and short stories, which include Teen Kanya (three short films based on Tagore’s short stories, with women as central characters), Charulata (considered to be his finest film) and Ghare Baire, Tagore’s famous novel.
In 1961—Tagore’s centenary year—Ray also directed a documentary on Rabindranath Tagore, in which he gave the voice-over himself.
In recent times, the film Chokher Bali, starring Aishwarya Rai, was based on a Tagore novel by the same name. The film was made in Bengali and then dubbed in Hindi for a national audience.
The India Pages
The Tagore Family
While Rabindranath was an icon himself, his family was also illustrious, with various members being pioneers and very successful in their respective fields. Apart from being exceptionally talented, they were progressive in their mindset and actively supported education and women’s emancipation:
Debendranath Tagore—Father. Founder of the Brahmo Samaj, which became an inspiration for the Bengal Renaissance.
Dwijendranath Tagore—Eldest brother. Was a great scholar, poet and composer.
Satyendranath Tagore—Elder brother. First Indian to join the Indian Civil Service.
Jyotirindranath Tagore—Elder brother. Musician, composer, playwright.
Abanindranath Tagore—Rabindranath’s nephew. Major artist of the Bengal school as well as noted writer.
Noted film actress, Sharmila Tagore, is also from the same extended family.
The National Anthem
The Indian national anthem Jana Gana Mana was written and composed by Rabindranath Tagore. It was written in highly Sanskritized Bengali and was first sung at the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress in 1911. It was later adopted as the national anthem of the country in the year 1950. Bangladesh also chose one of Tagore’s songs Amar Sonar Bangla (literally, ‘My Golden Bengal’) as its national anthem.
The Land of Cards: Stories, Poems, and Plays for Children Page 14